564 Transactioxs of the American Institute. 



this wliy tlie prairies and all the valleys of our western streams are 

 so extremely fertile. The region nearest the mountains contains the 

 most minerals, for it would sink soonest ; and hence we cannot fail to 

 see that the soil of the country which hitherto has been called the 

 American desert is really the richest of all our broad domain. I 

 show now a specimen of Colorado wheat, which probably is the best 

 wheat in the world, and I have abundant evidence that the yield 

 was fully forty bushels to the acre. 



A GuAPE Test. 

 Mr. A. J. Cay wood exhibited three boxes of grapes, Isabella and 

 Catawba, from the Vine Yalley Grape-growers' Company, of Canan- 

 daigua lake; also a box of Catawbas from Hezekiah Green, of the 

 same place. The juice of the Catawbas was tested by a special 

 committee with a saccharometer. With this instrument the grapes 

 are placed in a thick clotli and the juice extracted by wringing the 

 cloth. The juice is put in a glass cylinder, and the saccharometer 

 inserted. The Vine Company's stood at eighty-seven degrees ; Mr. 

 Green's at eighty-tive degrees. Specimens of the grapes were passed 

 around among the members, who observed that the Catawbas were 

 very sweet, and the best tasted by the Club this fall. It was stated 

 that the foilage of the vines in Vine Valley is not destroyed by frost 

 so early by tliree weeks as in other sections of western New York. 

 As an instance of the great difference in grapes as to the amount of 

 sugar they contain, Mr. C. alluded to a recent official test of the 

 "Walter grape by which it appeared that this remarkable seedling 

 shows 104 degrees. x*J"o grape is good for wine that does not show 

 well by this test, for no addition of cane sugar can supply the place 

 of the grape sugar whicli nature develops in the choice varieties. 

 This remarkable sweetness of the Walter, recommends it for tlie 

 table as well as for wine-making purposes. 



Self-milking Cows. 

 Mr. James Miller, of Penn Yan, N. Y., gave the following as his 

 Tiiethod of preventing a cow sucking herself. It requires the head 

 part of a leatlier halter, with a ring and a piece of chain of small size, 

 eiglit inches long, a stick two aiid a half feet long, about an inch and 

 a half in diameter, and a leather circingle. Have the stick fastened 

 'to the ciiain with a piece of round iron flattened at each end, so that 

 it c£u be riveted on, and leave a bow projecting beyond the end of 



